Clyde Avenue resident Edward Voss and Chautauqua County Homeless Coalition board member Gina Ward address Jamestown City Council on homelessness issue (July 29, 2024)
Concerns about how the City of Jamestown is handling an increase in homelessness were brought before City Council Monday night.
The city declared a state of emergency on Thursday due to over 300 people, who are presumably homeless, camping illegally in the city. The city said the situation has created severe impacts on public health, safety, and city resources.
Clyde Avenue resident Edward Vos posed the question of why, if the city didn’t have funds to address the issue, they thought local non-profits and religious organizations would, “If the local agencies and the churches have the resources, then why did you need to bring it? I’m confused. If we pride ourselves on being a Christian nation or a Christian community then our priority for the homeless neighbors must be equal, and I mean this sincerely, to the education of our children.”
Cyndi Schoberg of Arlington Avenue said she visited the encampment Monday and met a woman named Angela who had been there for about two weeks, “I asked her, ‘Have you been to DSS? Have you tried to get some benefits?’ And she’s paralyzed in one arm and doesn’t have any toes on her left foot, so she really can’t walk up the hill to DSS and so she missed her appointments. And I said, ‘Do you have a caseworker?’ and she said she hasn’t been able to get back up there to get one. So, I just want to reiterate that they’re humans. They’re people. Granted, they’ve probably got a lot of issues, that’s why they got there in the first place.”
Chautauqua County Homeless Coalition Board member Gina Ward, who also works for Southern Tier Environments for Living, said the coalition represents a network of non-profits and municipalities working on ending homelessness.
She said that network shares the concerns for those experiencing homelessness, “Right now, we are mobilizing short term street outreach teams with volunteers from many human services organizations. In the coming weeks, the Coalition is organizing a count of unsheltered individuals in Chautauqua County to better understand the scope of the need.”
Ward said Chautauqua Opportunities Inc.‘s new women’s shelter and a new Code Blue Shelter plan to open this year that will add significantly more beds.
Council President Tony Dolce said the emergency declaration is to try to bring in as much funds as possible to address the increase in homelessness, “Just like any other disaster declarations, that opens the door possibly to bring those funds in. Funds for clean-up, things for working with agencies and getting money that’s out there, and we do not have a line item in the budget, we never have, to deal with this problem. Quite frankly, it’s really blossomed and I don’t want to speak for the mayor but the reason this has been brought up is that it has really exploded exponentially in the last few months.”
Dolce said many of city council’s members have met with the people encamped near the Riverwalk and in different parts of the city.
He said there are many different reasons why people are homeless and it’s a lot more than what local governments can handle, “Big cities are having a hard time handling it. We’re doing our best to get our arms around it, to get as much help as possible to the agencies that are out there, to the religious organizations and churches, to the non-profits, as well as working with our state and county officials to try to come up with a plan to not only help the people that are there, but we need to protect the integrity of our city and clean it up and keep it safe.”
City officials stated in the emergency declaration that the responsibility for managing the crisis ultimately rests with Chautauqua County Government and the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development‘s contracted partner, Chautauqua Opportunities, Inc.
Does the lady who talked to the lady who couldn’t make her appointment with DSS have a car? If yes why didn’t she say, lets make you a new appointment and I’ll come and get you and take you to it, we’ll go together. That would be doing something, that would be action.